Recent reviews by Flesh-Bound Meddler (Derogatory)

Should have been a single player game, not a multiplayer one. Little to do productively after all quests are done. But I did have a good time with it.

SPOILER FREE

Dragon's Dogma 2 is a captivating action-RPG that triumphantly builds upon the foundations of its predecessor. Capcom has crafted a world that is as unforgiving as it is alluring, delivering an experience that challenges players while rewarding their perseverance.

One of the game's greatest strengths is its combat system, which seamlessly blends elements from the Monster Hunter and Dark Souls series. The ability-based combat requires precise timing and keen awareness of enemy weaknesses. Unleashing a devastating spell or executing a perfectly timed sword strike against a towering beast is immensely satisfying. The magic system, in particular, stands out with its lack of mana constraints, allowing players to freely wield powerful arcane abilities. The Warrior class' ability to string together lightning-fast sword swings also adds a gratifying layer of depth to the combat.

While the combat grows progressively easier as players level up and acquire better gear, the game's real challenge lies in navigating its intricate quest system. Dragon's Dogma 2 takes a page from the FromSoftware playbook, allowing players to inadvertently mess up quest lines through their actions. This adds a sense of unpredictability and consequence to the player's choices, making each decision feel meaningful. However, the narrative itself, though engaging, lacks the same depth of lore found in FromSoftware's titles.

One of the game's true joys is its exceptional exploration. Venturing across the vast and diverse open world is constantly rewarding, with hidden treasures, ancient ruins, and perilous marshes dotting the landscape. The sense of discovery is heightened by the lack of an in-depth map system, which forces players to rely on their own navigation skills. While this approach can be frustrating at times, it ultimately encourages a deeper connection with the world.

The game's visual presentation is undoubtedly a highlight, with the RE Engine delivering breathtaking vistas and stunning monster designs. The Sphinx, in particular, stands out as a mesmerizing and formidable foe. However, the technical performance can be inconsistent, with the frame rate occasionally struggling in densely populated areas, even on high-end hardware.

The true endgame content, while intriguing in concept, falls short in execution. The new quests and slightly more challenging monsters do not offer enough incentive for players to fully explore the map again. The lack of meaningful progression or unique rewards dampens the excitement of continuing one's journey beyond the main story.

Despite these shortcomings, Dragon's Dogma 2 remains a compelling and immersive adventure. Capcom has crafted a world that is as unforgiving as it is captivating, offering players a combat system that is both fluid and demanding. While the narrative depth and endgame content could use further refinement, the overall experience is a strong step forward for the series. With the potential for future expansions and improvements, Dragon's Dogma 2 firmly establishes itself as a must-play for action-RPG enthusiasts.

I've been fair with this game, I gave it way more opportunities to drag me in than most other games that disappointed me, cuz I saw it's potential.

So lets talk about it, because even die hard Xbox fans are seeing the cracks. I'll be talking about Exploration, Characters, Story, Gameplay, Visuals, Bugs and a final conclusion.

EXPLORATION:
In previous Bethesda titles, there was an almost tangible experience with it's exploration. You walk in a direction and you WILL bump into something eventually, and sooner than you think.

Slowly you fill your world map out, and get the reward of fast travelling. In Starfield there is no reward for exploration, you can fast travel anywhere you want, and due to this, the joy of exploration is taken from you.

On any planet there are numerous (Very dull) POIs, 99% of them don't add anything to the games experience either. Not only are these POIs and side quests very beige, but the space between them is ENORMOUS too. I walked for 12 minutes once just to progress a side quest because my ship wouldn't land any closer.

The exploration in this game is artificial, it leaves a plastic taste in my mouth.

CHARACTERS:
Over the course of the game, I realized that your companions are just carbon copies, morally, of each other. The only one that has a touch of personality is Bennett, but after a while, you learn he also has the same compass as Sarah. You would think that having only 4 main companions would mean the team could really fill these characters with more humanity than a Scrubber Droid from Star Wars, but alas.

The NPCs in this game are just plain boring as well, with zero charisma, other than a couple of spacers. The biggest problem with the characters is the lack of innovation, and tbh, this is going to come up a few times in this review.

The way these characters act and talk feels like they were just copy pasted from previous Bethesda games. Which doesn't work in 2023. In a gaming world where characterization is incredibly important, Starfield has next to zero.

It feels AI Generated if I'm honest with you, like much of this game.

STORY:
Early on in this game, I was really struggling to get to grips on where to go, I had to get recommendations to start off with the Faction quests.

Which was a fantastic piece of advice, because the faction quests are easily the best part of this game for me. Half of them are anyway, The UC quest line to eradicate the Terrormorphs is fantastic, and the TMs themselves are scary, quite unique in how they interact with you. But after you finish this quest line, you never really hear about it again until the end of the game.

The Crimson Fleet quests are also fantastic, I loved the Treasure planet vibes I was getting from it, and it also felt like the most complete. The rest of the faction quests were not good. Shallow, and again, without innovation. They kinda go backwards tbh.

In terms of the main storyline, I wont spoil it, but it's a story that's convoluted without any substance to it in the first place. You're dragged through space from 1 fast travel point to another.

Again, there were points of light and potential with it. The Earths story and how it became how it was, was very interesting, and right up my street, but it was soon thrown to the side, and so were the characters involved in it throughout the main quest.

The conclusion is wasteful, it doesn't feel like you accomplished anything. And the characters involved within it? Why should I care about these cut outs. The game seemed to assume you were going to have a connection to them, but I didn't give two hoots.

GAMEPLAY:
I want you to imagine Skyrim, where you can dual wield spells and magical shouts, Fallout where you can slow time to pick off weak points.

Now imagine a game where it tries to implement these but on a shoestring, that's Starfield. The 5 guns you put on your hotbar will eventually turn into just 2 good guns. Which you can use to solo the game anyway (Hard Target OP). I can count on 1 hand the amount of times I used my powers in this game.

I saw absolutely no use for them. The game has no challenge, no balance. The final boss (LOL) took 1 shot from my level 55 character to the head.

Again, no innovation, nothing new was brought to the table here, and as I played it more, I was BEGGING for the game to give me something new. It never did. Speaking of new things, the looting. I'm not sure where Bethesda gets off by making looting absolutely trash in their games. It's all crap & no substance, just like their "Open world" in Starfield.

Spending 5 minutes on a lock should REWARD you, not make you sigh in disbelief at the ammo you just looted. To end the Gameplay section of this roast, I wanna point out, I completed this game after almost 100 hours. Then, just to see, I completed it again in NG+ in under an hour, with 1 gun, 1 common, non-upgraded gun.

The side quests and everything else are just not interesting enough to warrant another journey.

About the only thing I did have fun with in the game (When I figured out navigation) within the gameplay was the ship building. I saw MAD potential here, it's very fun. I made a good few ships like the Rocinante and Narcissus. It needs a bit of work, but I did have a ton of fun here.

VISUALS:
I was playing this game on a 4080 machine, everything to max. The environment in this game is very pretty, looking up at the stars from a moon is one of the prettiest vistas I've seen in a game.

But Bethesda, we gotta talk about lighting, This game has WILD changes in lighting, and reflective lighting. It makes the game look ugly at times, which is a shame.

The characters and how they look is, again, uninspired and dull. If someone told me this games characters were created in 2015, I'd believe them. But honestly? You don't need to make a game look pretty for it to be a good game. If everything else was up-to par, the visuals wouldn't even be something I mention here, which is why this section is fairly short.

BUGS (We gotta talk about them):
I dont want this section to be too meaty, I forgive small bugs, I dont mind your random visual bug etc, but Game Breaking bugs for a Triple A FLAGSHIP exclusive game is unacceptable.

I wish I was the only one, Starfield has corrupted save file issues, something that can't be replicated either, it just HAPPENS and completely dumpsters your tens of hours of playtime. It says I have 90-100+ hours in this game, but 30 hours was wasted due to these bugs.

Unacceptable. Other than this, I didn't really bump into many other bugs, but they're there. Not good enough, Bethesda.

CONCLUSION:
I've tried my best to pick up issues I've had that I've not seen elsewhere, there's actually a lot more wrong with this game, but others have covered it.

To remind folks, this is a 70 quid flagship triple A game that did not hit the mark for a lot of consumers. I understand Microsoft hasn't had a lot of wins, Starfield was meant to be that win, but they brought it out way too soon. It needed time to cook more.

I expect the game to be a much better experience in a couple years. I hope it is. Stop releasing games unfinished, and stop relying on your fan base to fix your games as well.

SUMMARY:
Inquisition brought the best of DA: Origins & DA2, smashed em together and then grew into it's own game. On release, DAI had a lot of negative press from older fans of the franchise, including myself, which I regret.

I just revisited it and It still holds up after almost 10 years. It tore me up emotionally and connected me to the characters almost as well as the older games did, some characters moreso.

OPEN WORLD:
DAI came out before "Open world" was a huge thing and it played with the genre, giving you instanced massive arenas to explore which were absolutely packed with things to discover. It was a huge undertaking, the mount system has aged fairly badly, to the point I never used my mount, looting can be janky as well, but you won't be without goals to achieve.

ACHIEVEMENTS:
DAI was the first Dragon Age title to come with Achievements on release and they are mostly fine. The only issue for me was the DLC Trials. They required multiple run throughs where you had to get fairly deep into the early game to unlock and then restart another playthrough. One example, is it's impossible to get to Skyhold under level 5 and save all the villagers in Haven. This act is what causes Cole to leave the party as each villager you leave behind gives big disapproval with "Fair Feather Friends" on, which is a requirement for the Halamshiral achievement. These two, Trial of Lovers and Trial of the Fool were my only problems however, the rest were grand.

THE DLCs:
I would ask that if you enjoyed this game, or even Origins, to please play through the DLCs. they explain so much about the lore of the world that has been building for years at this point. I won't go into details because I want you to discover it for yourself. But you won't be disappointed. One hint I CAN give though is... Try to make sure all your favorite companions are at least friendly towards you. You'll thank me later.

THE AUDIO:
This game is unmatched at it's time for the music, efforts, voice acting (kinda), and effects during gameplay. Dragon Age has always been known for it's grand swelling orchestras, but they turn it up in this game (Looking at you Skyhold). The weight of each swing or swipe of your weapon is incredible. All abilities have their own unique sound trigger so you know what has been cast by your team mates in the heat of battle. The voice acting is incredible across the board, however, the inquisitor themselves are very wooden. It's fantastic that your Main character is fully voice acted (I think a first at the time?), but it did need some improvements. Sometimes I felt like I was an Alexa/Siri clone chatting with all of these flavoured voices. Very off-putting.

VISUALS:
I found it very hard to believe I was paying a 9 year old game at some points. There are similar games that have released after DAI that look plain worse than this game. It's got that Bioware "Charm" of absolute hideous hairdos and the fact you can't have a full body customization of your Inquisitor was disheartening, but I think this was a restriction due to the massive amounts of armour sets and weapons in this game. The characters are ok, but the landscapes and biomes were my favourite to look at. You couldn't beat this game at the time for it's landscapes, it was just lovely.

DIFFICULTY
I just 100'd this game, and I can honestly say that I feel i had a similar experience across the board in terms of leveling progression. Early game is quite hard, even on casual, at points. However, the more experienced your inquisitor and party get, the easier the game becomes. when you get to around level 12-16 is when your game skyrockets. It makes you feel like a hero after all that investment, which goes in tandem with The Inquisition itself, others, or even yourself constantly doubting you throughout the game. Whether you're playing on Nightmare or Casual, you're gonna have the same experience, in my opinion. You may have to be a bit more careful in nightmare. But don't be afraid of it. A Tank, Off-tank, a Mage and a Rogue is all you need. Towards the end of the game you'll just be soloing stuff. Enjoy it.

CONCLUSION:
We have Dragon Age: Dreadwolf coming around the corner (I predict next year, as thats 10 years after DAI), and there's some clear connections with Inquisition with this upcoming game. If you have not played a Dragon Age before, I recommend picking this one up. Dragon Age Origins is still in my top 3 games of all time, but it's grown weary with age, same with DA2. This game catches you up with those 2 games anyway through it's quest lines.

If you're fed up of the same "Empty Open World" clones we've been getting the past few years, give this game a try, it'll surprise you with how full and vibrant it is, treat your inquisition with respect and you'll get it back.

It's time for you to take out a Would-be God, Inquisitor.

It took some fiddling but I eventually got the game running at a rate that was manageable. There's still some glitches, crashes and bugs. But the game is completely playable.

See this tweet for more information if you want to see if you can run it:

https://twitter.com/MoistOwletteOff/status/1294099063026200576

This is a Review Coming from someone who is completely new to this Genre. I recieved a Free key on Keymailer and decided to give it a go.

In it's current state I would not recommend this to other players who dont play this game. However, I would recommend it to the Metroidvania lovers out there if it came into conversation.

I wasn't quite sure what I was doing at the start and I just decided to move forward... Kicking and punching anything in my path. This, however got quite boring after some time and I wondered when I would be getting to any kind of equipment, special skills or story progression.

It felt to me like the mechanics were a bit slow to react at points but I could see the work that had been put into the game and appreciated it. I did like the style of the game but it reminded me of other much more popular titles and instead making me wonder if I should be playing them and not this.

As said before I can't give an indepth review due to my recent introduction to this type of game but i hope they could maybe make it a bit more friendly for the Noob such as myself.

Pros:
Looks Nice.
Soundtrack is OK.
Cool Slow-down kills.

Cons:
Not Welcome to Newer Players in the genre.
Clunky Controls at times.
No Tutorial.
Equipment or Magic, not easily found.
No Direction.
Female Protagonist Looks like she has a Moustache.

As a Beta backer, I'm very happy with what GGG have done with this game over the years, Well polished and a really great replacement for Diablo 2.

When you start, it can be a bit daunting to look at that huge passive tree before you, but after a time it becomes easier and easier to travel around the tree. Look at guides online, it's completely fine too, see what you can do to tweek it, your first build will always be horrible if you do not get help, but when you do make that one magical build that destroys everything it's extremely rewarding.

The Currency in this game is what made me play it for so long, it's so complex but at the same time simple. The haggle game is real and it's so ALIVE, always moving, don't believe that one guy with the fixed prices because this game is ALL about Supply and Demand.

This game has no pants, does not matter, you still look like the dog's bollocks towards the endgame with full bodied armour huggin dem thighs tight.

Need more Help? Visit Path of Exiles forums, it's full of info. And use poe.xyz to buy stuff. it's a time saver. ;)

Addictive!

9/10 Corrupted Tabula Rasas!

FromSoftware have really hit the nail on the head with this game, Unlike the beginning of Dark Souls (Which I still love btw) It's very inviting and pushes you to explore more, the fighting system is a lot more fluid in my opinion, the dying factor gives you a penalty now which forces you to really take on fights with more urgency to keep yourself from going hollow. The dodging system really works with Adaptability and a real sense of accomplishment comes from beating every monster/boss in this game.

My game ran fine after the first installation, but I am fairly frustrated that the Saves are not going to a cloud...rather saved on your system instead, but this is a small thing. I think the only other problem I have is the jumping system, this is not Zelda, it is still very awkward to jump in this game though I assume they did this to up the "♥♥♥♥ your kegs" factor when being chased by an Ogre etc.

Love it!

8/10 SunBros

As of Alpha 0.39, I had been following Maia since kickstarter and was really excited to play it and see where it went as I was a dungeon keeper fan. The Alpha is going well, I love the look of it and placement's of tiles. It's missing a save function right now but I believe that is coming soon along with a bunch of other stuff still in the works, kept me entertained for a couple of hour's until I couldn't find much else to do but really looking forward to the future of Maia. Keep it up!